Ronaldo at Madrid

As I write these words, huge chunks of stone from the coliseum roof are crashing down all around me; tall pillars are buckling into each other like dominoes; the ground is shaking; in the distance, through what seems to be several discrete layers of smoke of varying thickness and opacity (within which, at different depths, the silhouettes of the bewildered survivors stagger), an eerie orange glow emanates from what must be the spot where the meteor hit—whether because the collision started a fire or because of some radioactive property of the rock itself, I’m at a loss to say. Either way, there’s a weird, shrill hum in the air, as if all the insects on earth were dying at once. It’s pretty clearly the end of the world.

Well, whatever. The sentence I had just finished typing when the heavens tore open and the comets started raining down was this: Cristiano Ronaldo deserves more attention. I realize he gets a certain amount of attention already. I am aware that there are entire districts of China in which the entire populace does nothing but airbrush photographs of his hair for mass consumption. I have read that political conflicts between the various hereditary castes and clans within some of these prefectures may well curdle into intra-regional warfare if the Glisteners can’t reach an understanding with the Mussers. It’s not lost on me that the last time he tweeted an image of his belt buckle the economy of New Mexico accidentally collapsed.

Nevertheless, he deserves more attention, or at the very least he deserves a different kind of attention. Ever since he left Manchester United, he’s essentially been filling the role of predesignated unworthy losing rival to Messi—the mercenary face of the mercenary team whose joyless accumulation of superstar talent makes them the ideal foil to Barcelona’s spontaneous natural genius. We all know he’s playing brilliantly, but come on. He’s so impeccably written for the role of sports-movie bad guy—can his collars even un-pop?—and strikes such an antipathetic chord in most fans, and has minced his way so helplessly through all those devastating losses to Barça, and presents such an obvious contrast to the Messi style of play (Messi an elegant glide at an angle nobody thought of, Ronaldo a churning dust cloud plowing straight ahead) that whatever praise you offer Ronaldo seems fundamentally beside the point. He’s become a kind of casual hate figure, a semi-acknowledged moral whipping boy.

The problem is that using Ronaldo as an emotional tool to reinforce the justice of Barcelona’s greatness has made us—me, certainly, all too often—overlook the fact that he is playing absolutely brilliantly. His vicious hat trick against Villarreal yesterday not only pulled Madrid through a legitimately dangerous match and kept them within slipstream distance of Barcelona, it made another entry in the increasingly routine catalog of crazy Ronaldo heroics. That is, it was the sort of the thing he does for Madrid all the time, has been doing all the time since he got there (63 goals in 62 games doesn’t lie), and hasn’t quite been getting full credit for doing because he has hair gel and Messi scored even more over the same period.

I want to be precise about this, because the characterization of Ronaldo is subtle enough that it’s hard to think about clearly. It’s not that he’s a greater player than people say: He probably is, but then, people do say he’s a great player. It’s that there’s a vague, implied “but” that seems to accompany every description of his greatness, a sort of barely perceptible cultural echo that says, “but his greatness doesn’t count, because he’s easily caricatured by the English media and he got Rooney sent off in Germany.” That’s what I’d like to eliminate. He’s not a great player, but; he’s just a great player.

[Coincidentally, just as I was finishing that last paragraph, that red glow in the distance started flashing violently and a series of wild subsonic shocks started pounding through the surface of the earth, as though a dance club had been buried alive.]

What I kept thinking about during the Villarreal game yesterday was the way Ronaldo’s development has been guided by the Madrid transfer—another way in which his career contrasts with Messi’s. That is, Messi has spent his entire career at Barcelona and has flourished there by subsuming himself within the existing culture of the club and gradually rising within it. That worked beautifully for him because he was more or less perfectly suited to the culture of Barcelona, which is in any case a culture in which that kind of rise is fostered and encouraged to an extraordinary degree. At Manchester United, Ronaldo was the best player, but he was also working for a manager who has always been hostile to superstars, being covered by a media that more or less hated him, and playing a weird role in which he was essentially forced to be the main guy at the club while simultaneously existing within the fiction that there was no main guy at Manchester United, or else the main guy was the manager, or else the main guy was everyone else’s sincere extrapolated loyalty to Ryan Giggs’s living legacy.

At Madrid, Mourinho or no Mourinho, Ronaldo has thrived as the unambiguous center of the team, somewhere between its engine and its tuning fork. Like Cristiano himself, Madrid sometimes seem to be a hyper-energetic assemblage of charging, awkward parts. Like Ronaldo, they can’t just score, they have to work themselves up into a screaming cardiac frenzy of berserk despair and then score. Ronaldo is always the eye of that hurricane (which is obviously a super-intense evil hurricane in which the eye is the part that churns fastest) as well as whatever is making it spin. And (except possibly and damningly against Barcelona) he hasn’t backed down from the pressure but charged at it with clockwork fury and his most indescribably petulant pout. It’s not the most uplifting form of soccer to watch, but it’s one of the most visibly awesome, and it deserves to be feared and appreciated.

[Woah—the shattered ground just tore open a little way off and a vast, sprawling tentacle unfurled out of the crack. The air seems to be chanting in Latin. I'm going to make some lunch.]

The comparison always makes me think of that André Previn quote about Duke Ellington and Stan Kenton: “Stan Kenton stands before a hundred reeds and brass, makes a dramatic gesture, and every studio arranger in the audience knows just how it’s done; Duke Ellington lifts his little finger, three horns make a sound—and nobody knows what it is.”

When I wrote “hasn’t quite been getting full credit,” by the way, a flaming boulder the size of a VW bus landed three feet from my desk.

This is merely CRon’s quiet period, in which the folly of his own brand, when juxtaposed against other, more noble trademarks like Lio, forces him into that heel role for the foreseeable future. I’d imagine that in the future, we’ll remember his time at Real more fondly and with the respect you note above. However, for now, he’s going to live in that tiny man’s joyful shadow, I fear, no matter what he does.

Interesting timing to publish that post the very minute his nemesis wins the Ballon d’Or. Opinions come in circles and I believe people will happen to lose interest rooting for the beautiful game of Barcelona and it will be trendy again to be a Ronaldo fan real soon. As you said, goals don’t lie and CR9 is number 1 in this category since the start of the season (up 23-19). Nice little piece of writing otherwise!

There was a lovely interaction between your tweets during the game and this post. It was brilliant getting a little insight into how your ideas are sparked and crafted into pieces like this.

Regarding Ronaldo, I believe you’re right. I don’t really have anything insightful to add other than that since he left the Premier League, where I had to watch his antics far more frequently, I’ve become far more pro-Ronaldo.

Another great post (and might I add, awesome image as well). I do wonder, though, whether Ronaldo would want this sort of appreciation, this unbridled, smiling joy and rosy applause. The “bad guy” image you mention seems to me as much a part of Ronaldo-as-character as anything else. His behaviour on and off the pitch does nothing to combat it – if anything, he reinforces it. Maybe it’s a conscious or subconscious effort to distinguish himself from the likes of Messi; maybe it goes hand in hand with the direct, physical anger which seems to drive him on on the pitch (Messi’s smiling , joyful humility, by contrast, matches his & Barca’s style); maybe it’s just a role he enjoys playing. Whatever the reason, I get the feeling Ronaldo wouldn’t have it any other way.

He is great, but because he wasn’t the center of the Man Utd teams that won so many accolades, I don’t think Ronaldo will be seen in the proper light until Madrid win with him as The Eye. And by win, I mean a big double or triple, finishing above Barcelona in La Liga at minimum. Otherwise, he might be the furious Dan Marino to Messi’s Joe Montana.

1) Messi has scored more over the last two seasons, but Ronaldo’s strike rate is slightly better. Both are simply astonishing.

2) What Football Nomad points out regarding the proximity of his antics is true, and also has greatly worked in Messi’s favor. If Ronaldo had done the following for Man Utd to win the league title, I think the English-speaking media would have lost their already tenuous grasp on reality.

Brilliant article. I’m often blinded by how obviously self-obsessed and smarmy Ronaldo the person is and thus lose sight of just how freakishly talented a player he is. He’s simply terrifying bearing down on goal, and actually a far more cerebral player than many assume. With that said, I don’t think he will be included in the pantheon of all-time greats (top 10ish players) because of his selfishness and because I don’t think Portugal will win anything in the near future. It’s a shame he came after the golden generation of Portuguese players of the 1990s and early 2000s.

With that said, if Real Madrid can find greater coherence than “a hyper-energetic assemblage of charging, awkward parts” and string together a few La Liga titles and Champions League trophies (which would require that they best Barcelona) in the next few years, it might not tremendously matter what Portugal do.

This article raises the point that although everyone wants to compare Messi with Maradona (“A is like B”), the more apt (and SAT-esque) framework is actually comparing Ronaldo to Maradona, while comparing Messi to Pele and (“A is to B as C is to D”). I merely point you to two earlier articles by Mr Philips in Slate and also on this site (http://www.slate.com/id/2263201 and http://www.runofplay.com/2010/08/10/is-pele-underrated/ ).

Think about it: Ronaldo, an easily disliked anti-hero, bending teams to his will and tilting soccer fans against him. Messi, a cherubic and easily liked figure whose child-like joy in play is unimpeachable. Even when doing his Maradona impressions (cf. beating seven men en route to a goal, cheakily guiding a ball goal words with his hand), it’s only the latter that is waved off by fans as an outlier, easily banished behind the rest of his fair play… but that goal is at the *heart* of what Maradona represents.

All this is really another way of saying that I’m really looking forward to is when Ronaldo becomes Portugal’s fat, overweight, drug addled coach in twenty years.

To be fair Messi didn’t do much outside Barcelona. His Argentina didn’t fare particularly better than Ronaldo’s Portugal in the World Cup. So why is it used against Ronaldo but not Messi? In my book Ronaldo accomplished something very few footballers can/could do – be successful in EPL and La Liga. I’m not sure how well Messi would do in EPL playing for say MU or Chelsea and with media not particularly warm to anybody coming from Argentina.

@Andrei This is a fair point. The only reason I bring up the question of national team success is because it often DOES get brought up in conversations about Messi’s legacy – as in “he cannot be considered Maradona’s equal until he wins a World Cup single handedly” – which clearly has more to do with the unavoidable comparisons with Diego and will tediously be rehearsed every four years.

I don’t think there’s any question that Ronaldo owes a lot to the Premier League with respect to his development as a player. He came in a show pony and left as probably the most physically complete modern footballer.

And yes, I think Messi would do just fine playing in the pishing rain against the likes of Stoke and Birmingham. I know in Andy Gray’s world these godforsaken grounds are the litmus test of a footballer’s talents, but Messi’s recent record against the best of the Premier League, not to mention his physical and mental fortitude as a player, suggest he would be more than up for it.

Of course if you spoke Spanish, and deigned to read Marca or As, you might be of another opinion. Their ongoing campaign to beatify St. Cristiano has been nearly as frenzied as Madrid’s berserker attack. Apparently he only needs one more miracle to be received at the Vatican. (That miracle being scoring his first ever goal against Barcelona. Naturally)

@Brian Phillips Comparisons you are talking about are a bit apples to oranges. Comparing Messi to Maradona in my opinion is quite different to comparing him to say Ronaldo or Xavi. The reason is that Maradona separated himself from the rest including above mentioned Messi, Ronaldo and Xavi. Separated by the feat of achievements hardly matched by any player in the football history. He took very average Argentina to the world crown in 86 as Fernando Pando put it “single handedly”. He took even worse Argentina to the World Cup final in 90 and could have won it if not for very questionable penalty at the end of regulation. Btw the only team that went to the WC final two times in a row was Brazil in 58 and 62 and Pele wasn’t a factor in that second final. Maradona won Italian title with the perennial underachievers Napoli. Any team he played for no matter mediocre they were before became world beaters. This what separates him from the crowd. So let’s stick to comparing apples to apples i.e. Messis to Ronaldos to Xavis.

And yet during yesterday’s match, I found myself saying aloud “Oh.My.God.” time and again. At one point, my daughter in the next room yelled “What’s going on?!” and I replied, “Oh nothing. Ronaldo just did, like, twelve step-overs.” She yelled back, “Will they replay it?” and I replied, “No, they didn’t even mention it.” And they didn’t. Which says a lot, I think.

what this article fails to mention, as so many ronaldo vs messi pieces do, is that the characterization of ronaldo as a footballing villain pretty much falls apart once he steps off the pitch. by all accounts he’s a genuinely likable bloke in the dressing room, a committed professional who’s first into training and last to leave, who participates quietly in numerous charitable activities and loves children. that doesn’t seem to fit into the “impeccably written” role of a selfish, petulant, arrogant pretty boy with a ridiculously high centre of gravity, so it’s usually ignored.

having supported ronaldo at man utd for six years while he grew from a skinny, showboating kid with bad hair to a muscley, goalscoring machine with bad hair, i will always have a special place in my heart for him. strangely i feel like the more credit he gets for his football this year, the more ill-feeling gathers against him.

“As you said, goals don’t lie and CR9 is number 1 in this category since the start of the season (up 23-19). Nice little piece of writing otherwise!”

CR7 has all the penalties for RM, which I think are up to 7. I think Barca has had one…and it might have been taken by Villa. Can’t remember. Also, Messi has 12 assists to Ronaldo’s six…Messi is quite an unselfish player and drops back a lot. He shares with David Villa, who is third in La Liga’s top scorer standings with 12 goals. Pedro is seventh with nine goals…there isn’t another RM player on that list until you get to Higuain (12th spot with 7 goals), who has been gone for a while. My point is Messi plays for his team. Same thing in the WC for Argentina…they had a dreadful midfield and Messi had to keep dropping back to make gorgeous easy passes for Higuain to just pop into the net without any effort whatsoever on his part. Sorry to write an essay, but when I see stupid comments like, “Messi sucked in the WC” I start to wonder if everyone but myself is blind.

That being said, I think Xavi deserved the Balon d’Or today…yes he didn’t score a gazillion goals, but he is the backbone of both La Roja and Barcelona and people taking him out of the equation because of his scoresheet is stupid.

I think a better match to have written about would’ve been the Valencia match, he carried the team into victory. But I hate him so much, its hard to recognize anything he does publicly without a “…because everyone else sucked much more” following a “he’s a good player.”

This taps into the essential argument at the heart of “who is the best player” and the reason we all know Maradona was better than Pélé – the importance of the narrative to our enjoyment of football. Barcelona’s 5-0 drubbing of Madrid was either pure joy or unutterably dull depending on into which story you were buying. I found it dull, as it did nothing to create tension in the league, and prevented Madrid from becoming an unstoppable nemesis for Barcelona. My brother, on the other hand, found it joyful as it showed that style is paramount in football, and as it might encourage Madrid to ratchet up the spending, creating an even more awesome form of hubris.

You’re right to say that most call Ronaldo a “great player, but”. He’s the baddie, he could never be better than the goodie. Messi, as the goodie, will always just edge him out – this would be my brother’s view. I would call Messi a “great player, but” and consider Ronaldo to be better than him, as that’s the story I want. Neither is comparable to Maradona, though.

What made Maradona great was that he was the anti-hero. He did the baddie things but we rooted for him anyway. He was Dirty Harry, Hannibal Lecter, Philip Marlowe, and Raskolnikov rolled into one. Every time I see Scarface I think of Maradona. We innately recognise that this narrative, added to the poor boy made good, the underdog story of Napoli, sheer craziness, and the unflinchingly unpracticed nature of his game, is a superior story to anything other players have created. I would love to digress further (do you take submissions?) but apparantly they pay me to work.

Ronaldo and Messi combined could only match Maradona if they somehow ended up on the same team, as deadly rivals.

@Andrei Netherlands also reached 2 consecutive world cup finals, in 74 and 78.
Also Messi has won everything with Argentina at the under 21 level whereas Cristanio won nothing with Portugal under 21 so do not say he can only play good for Barcelona. The fact still remains that Cristanio has won titles with Manchester and Manchester only, so i guess with that logic I can ignorantly claim that Cristanio can only perform for ManU.
All Messi needs to win again in his career is a Copa America and World Cup with the Argentina senior side, which he is more than capable of doing.

Cristiano Ronaldo rejected Paris Hilton, if I remember correct, and she carried on with her life. Had Messi rejected her, it would have been done in such an angelic way that she would reject her past, apply for literature programs, and even take up hosting small pasta-and-rose-wine dinners with friends.

And that’s where the difference lies. And the absolute naivety of Messi’s game.

@MC Exactly. And the first one was gifted to him by Özil and Benzema. I don’t think he had as great game as he or his fans think he did, against Villareal. But this is the essence of his qualities: he will play rather bad football by being utterly selfish, wasteful, grandiose, etc but still score goals and get the job done. But then he has been playing for Real Madrid and Man Utd, after all…

No one can deny Ronaldo’s talent, but the two biggest reasons why he is hated in most quarters (and adored in a few) are as follows…

1. The narcissism that he has allowed, and invited, to become his global trademark polarizes almost everyone. Humility is admirable, and where Messi seems to have a basement full of it, Ronaldo’s shelves appear to be empty.

2. Ronaldo is a cheater. Now, before you dismiss everything else I am about to write, let me say that I honestly want Ronaldo to do well. I want him to shatter the Madrid and La Liga goal record. I want him to win the treble. I want him to mature and fully harness the devastating potential he has. But as an objective, justice seeking sports fan (where’s instant replay?!) I have seen too many videos of him diving, feigning injury, complaining to refs, and doing anything he can to sway the outcome of game. That’s cheating. Go to Youtube and you’ll see hours of proof.

If Cristiano Ronaldo would stop buying into his own brand, if he would play through all tackles and opponents, instead of looking for a handout, he could be the greatest, and we see glimpses of this.

Essentially, if Ronaldo had the humble work ethic of Messi, he could be better than Messi. But then I guess he wouldn’t be Ronaldo.

The amusing thing here is that we’re all raging against CRon’s villainous qualities, yet I can’t recall for the life of me the last time he did anything so prickish that I took notice and said quietly to myself, “hey, that Cristiano Ronaldo lad is prickish.”

@James T Yeah, it’s mainly just run-of-the-mill diving combined with insufferable pouting and sneering. He doesn’t do anything particularly awful, he just reads as somewhere between a pampered drug-cartel heir and a member of Cobra Kai. Cross that with the fact that he excels for uber-power teams that a lot of people hate and you get extreme hysterical loathing.

Which probably also says something about the extent to which the English tabloid media still drives football discourse throughout the English-speaking world—a lot of people never got over the hatefest they whipped up over the wink in ’06.

I thought shoving Guardiola was painted Cristiano as just the kind of punk that has been described. Last season he intentionally elbowed a player in the face and broke his nose. But yeah, mostly it’s the constant diving and pouting that makes me dislike him intensely. That and the thousands of stepovers when no other player is within 1o meters.

@Brian Phillips Oh yeah. Because that’s not shallow at all. I’m sure that picture proves all your arguments and shows what a d*** Ronaldo really is.

Face the facts, lads. You pile your hatred on Ronaldo, conveniently ignoring the truth, because he DOES look like the picture-perfect movie villain when compared to Messi – suave, attractive, and talented. He’s much too pretty and skilled to ACTUALLY be a nice guy as well, the three never come hand in hand, so clearly he has to be a d***!

“Although I’ve always thought of him as more upscale Jersey Shore than WASP-y Cobra Kai.”

Two things:
1. Cobra Kai is almost *exactly* the way I’ve subconsciously visualized C.R. deep in some part of my head I didn’t previously have access to. So thanks for that.

2. Xavi has the most Jersey Shore-iest haircut you can get. The prototype Jersey Shore haircut, I’d argue. I’ve myself seen Xavi double park and hop out of an Escalade to grab a loaf of lard bread literally thousands of times. And YET! He is beloved, beloved

And I guess what I’m saying is no matter how short C.R.’s shorts get, you couldn’t blame him for feeling like sometimes the deck is maybe stacked against him.

@Matt C. Who was the focus of the United teams of 2006-2009 if not Ronaldo? He was unarguably the main man of the entire UCL/EPL/Shield/Club World Cup-winning campaign of 2007-2008, in which United won as much with him as Barca did with Messi the next year, despite not having Xavis and Iniestas supporting him.

@sic I think those arguments get into our deep-seated resentment at how he chooses to use his abundant skill. But yes, I’d forgotten the elbow and the nudge, but the stepovers are what they are. Where Mark van Bommel bludgeons, CR steps over. They can’t help it. It’s just who they are.

@Andrei
let’s see, italy won back-to-back finals in ’34 and ’38. the netherlands went and lost twice in ’74 and ’78. then west germany went THREE times in a row, losing in ’82 and ’86 before winning in ’90 (i believe that’s two in a row with said argentina). and of course since then brazil went three times in a row in ’94, ’98 and ’02. but who’s counting?

btw, great post. i remember the first time i saw cristiano play and the immediate reaction i had was one of a meteorite screaming towards goal. and do i correctly remember another similar article hear where he was compared to starscream from transformers?? if he played in a cape and leotards i would love the spectacle of him more.

@Brian Phillips Indeed, mate. The English media have plenty of whipped-up fury in reserve from 2006. Think if you asked them to a man, they’d still hate Diego Simeone for getting Becks sent off in 1998. I know I do.

@Stephanie Messi was good at the WC 2010. Not great. He had a few shots on goal himself — and still couldn’t manage to score.

@ Others — What exactly is this obsession with humility? I don’t care what my great players do, or say — they should score goals/create chances. Ronaldo does both as good as anyone in football, if not better.

@Rayne Coaches put the ball on the floor to give their team more time to make up their lines *all* the time. No worse than when Mouinho kicked he ball away from Iniesta as he was reaching down to get in a CL game against Inter last year.

I find it odd that the issue of CR7′s value is somehow–within this round of discussion certainly–inexorably tied to his position as Messi’s foil. As if Messi’s joie de vivre, or humility, has anything to do with the “but” to Ronaldo’s greatness.

Back when Ronaldo was the darling of the entire world, the poster child of one the biggest and richest clubs in the world, winner of his own Ballon d’Or, eye of the usual English hype hurricane; back when Messi was an oft-injured understudy to Ronaldinho and Eto’o, Ronaldo was then what he is now: a supremely talented player. A great player, but…

…he doesn’t play defense.
…he’s more interested in fooling the ref than trying to score.
…he’d rather do a round of stepovers than make a successful pass.

and most damning of all:

…he doesn’t seem to make his teammates any better.

Having played for the biggest club in both England and Spain, I find it hard to believe that anyone believes that Ronaldo is underhyped, or somehow not receiving the attention he deserves. But, I also have a hard time imagining how anyone can compare CR7 to Messi in the first place. But, I’ll leave it to Sid Lowe to debunk that madness:

The problem is, he plays no defense and doesn’t track back. That is all that’s stopping him. I mean, the ball could literally be fifteen feet away from him, and he is so fast that is nothing, but he won’t put pressure on the offender. So when watching him not on offense, he seems lazy.

But I agree with your post. I was trying to tell my friends the other day that Ronaldo is just one of those guys who is easy to hate. Its almost even trendy to not like him, kinda like Beckham. But that doesn’t mean he’s not just playing extraordinarily well. I don’t care if he was offside that last goal, it doesn’t happen if he doesn’t put in the hustle and take an amazing shot. He was so fast he beat a guy already who was already running at the ball when he was still at the ground

Great post, I can understand that people would hate him, but it’s annoying that they deny his brilliance, I mean seriously what more can he do? he’s always their for his team, best player at every match and scoring goals at a rate like no other in the history of Madrid, so yes I agree with you, he deserves more attention..

@lobotics couldn’t agree more. His fierce, comic-book villain fury defines his very approach to the beautiful game. Ronaldo’s style, as Brian so eloquently puts it, “is … the eye of that hurricane”. The use of the image as well merits exactly the impact his style has and continues to have on European football. He is a runaway train, a rabid wolf to Messi’s Ferrari, his sleek panther. Superb stuff RunOfPlay.

@Brian Phillips Yup. But it’s also a refutation of Marca’s assertion that Ronaldo is a more “complete” player, and, I think if you give it another read, you’ll see that it is really a compelling argument that despite the obvious and irrefutable skill of both players, one is clearly superior.

Regardless, thanks for the site. I’m new to it, but it’s been a welcome addition to my daily surfing.

In total agreement with this article. I think CR7 should get credit for doing more in adversity than Messi: taking Man Utd’s team of battlers to 2008 euro glory as well as the miracle of beating Mourinho’s invincible Chelsea in 2007; the goals that took them to the Final in 2009; carrying a somewhat disjointed Real for two seasons; terrific tournaments with Portugal in 2004 and 2006 (whatever has happened since).

In contrast, has Messi done a whole lot away from Barcelona’s Camp Nou home games, the downhill skiing of soccer? Did we even see him in the Chelsea and Inter semi finals?

One thing that never gets mentioned – and I’m not saying it’s unfair but it at least deserves to be considered – is that Messi’s HGH regimen. I’m still unsure how fair it is to call HGH “doping” for most athletes in the world – an offense which they can be suspended for – but for Messi it’s okay. And let’s not pretend that his HGH regimen is anything other than a performance enhancer because of his athletic abilities. If he only grew to 5 feet tall so what! It wasn’t life threatening. He was just going to be short, but Barca paid for his HGH because he was a promising footballer and it would make him better. I’m not calling Messi a doper; he ABSOLUTELY did nothing wrong, but the playing field isn’t exactly level. I have to wonder just how incredible Ronaldo would be if he had been routinely injected with HGH for years.

great article. My son, now 11, became a big CR7 fan starting about 4 years ago when we watched Man U. matches together. I have had my criticisms of Cristiano, but kept them to myself to not influence my son one way or another. My son sees the supreme ball skills, the courage to take anyone on 1v1, and even the cockiness to my son I think just looks like confidence – all good things for the youth player to admire.
So, realizing that, CR7 has grown on me too. He is fit and focused this year, and is fun to watch. He will be Messi’s recognized rival if Real beat Barca at the Bernabeu.

@Mike WHA?! I’m sure I’m falling victim to a troll, but since this is an increasingly popular “argument” as Messi’s ascendancy has drawn the usual legions of contrarians, here goes…

1) In spite of your frequent declarations to the contrary, you *are* calling Messi a doper. Right here, in fact: “let’s not pretend that his HGH regimen is anything other than a performance enhancer”. That’s the definition of doping, amigo. Methinks thou doth protest too much. If you’re going to defame someone, at least have the cojones to be honest about it.

2) Which brings me to my second point: It *was* something other than a performance enhancer. In fact, the amount of HGH he was given was less than the amount you (I presume you’re not a midget, right?) and I naturally secreted prior to puberty. The “playing field isn’t exactly level”, indeed.

3) You say: “If he only grew to 5 feet tall so what!” That might, indeed, be a different story (leaving aside the fact that, in the modern game, that’s still tiny; he’d have to carry ingots of lead in his pockets to keep his feet). But that wasn’t the case. His projected maximum height prior to treatment was 4′ 7″. That’s called “dwarfism”, and is almost half a foot shorter than your cheeky brush-off implies.

4) You say: “It wasn’t life threatening.” 4′ 7″ is, indeed, tiny enough to impair any hopes he might have had of living a life verging on what we might call “normal”. It’s certainly small enough to remove any hopes he might have had of capitalizing on his unique talent. But you being the doctor and ethicist, what would you have told a 9 year old boy destined for a life of dwarfism? Do you know any little people?

Please, spare us your thinly veiled character attacks. Nothing comes across as more spineless and cruel than some axe grinder accusing an athlete of cheating in the absence of proof. The guy had a physical condition that necessitated treatment until he was 13, and is no more a cheater than Higuain is for having his disk repaired, or Eduardo is for having his leg pinned, or your beloved Ronaldo is for having that “corrective” ankle surgery in 2008, before his Balon d’Or season.

As much as I’m sure this isn’t really possible on some level, I’ve always felt I was able to separate the person from the deed. When Ronaldo plays wonderfully, I feel no compulsion to append the apparently obligatory “but…”. The guy is sensational. Especially now. Full stop.

And, while I admittedly adore Messi the character as well as Messi the player, I have no qualms about criticizing him for his sins. He *does* dive and he *has* handled the ball (more than once, for those who care), things that I find cheapen the game.

I think the compelling difference between the two is not that one is perfect and one is the embodiment of all things wrong. That’s too polarized, something we seem increasingly happy to do these days. No, I think it’s a little more subtle than that.

Messi just does those dirty things *less often* than Ronaldo, and that makes all the difference. Throw in the fact that he doesn’t seem to have mercenary tendencies, mumbles and blushes in interviews, and access to his private life is strictly controlled and filtered through Barcelona’s PR department, and you have all the makings of a caricatured, clean-living hero.

A more compelling article, I think, might have been how much Messi needs Ronaldo. Because, after all, if Ronaldo wasn’t taking the heat and playing the villain, who’s to say that Messi might not come under greater scrutiny? How different might his creation story be if he was forced to embody both sides of the human psyche?

If I close my eyes and try to imagine a world in which Diego Maradona is not batshit insane, I can only see it in the context of a foil, a split Maradona whose evil counterpart pushes him to greatness even as it monopolizes the demons, vices, and press-borne wrath that, in this world, buried the little man.

@Brian Yeah, this isn’t really an argument. Messi’s HGH treatment was medically mandated, legal, and finished with years ago, as far as I’ve ever heard. Less an issue today than a player taking a painkilling injection before a game.

@Brian Honestly, I wasn’t trying to attack his character or say that he “doped.” Doping, as I would define it, is taking a substance that is against the rules. Messi didn’t break any rules. He didn’t do anything illegal. He didn’t take a banned substance and try to get away with it or lie about it. He did what he was allowed to do, and he’s not a cheat. But please don’t sit on a high horse – or blindly allow Barca to do the same – and say that it was critically important for him to have HGH injections for his “quality of life” or so he could live “a normal life.” Barca paid for the HGH for the quality of their football club nothing more…certainly not because they have some deep concern over hormone deficiency. Honestly, the day they start paying for HGH for every person with a hormone deficiency across the globe – or even in Argentina or even ONE that has no chance of playing for them – is the day that we can think of it as anything other than a purposeful, performance-enhancing regimen. If Leo wasn’t a naturally gifted footballer, let’s all admit that he would be a 4’7” guy living in Argentina right now. And really, it’s disingenuous at best to compare HGH to ankle surgery…and I think you know that. None of this makes Messi a bad person – or, certainly, Ronaldo a better one – but it is naive to pretend that this isn’t a part of Messi’s legacy isn’t it? In “Greatest of All Time” arguments you’d like to think that the players at the top are so transcendent that they could have played in any era and been great. Even 20 years ago, Messi couldn’t have played. He never would have had the proper drugs to get him to the point he is at. In thinking about his – deserved – place in the All-time pantheon, I would argue that it is only fair to Ronaldo and to all the rest not to ignore this.

@Mike …and had Ronaldo had that ankle injury in 1904, he probably would never have reached his current level. And had Barcelona paid to treat Garrincha’s birth defects in 1936, he probably would have been twice the player he was, or maybe half the player, who knows. These kinds of counterhistoricals are ultimately pretty silly.

Messi had a medical problem a long time ago, it was treated, and now he’s okay enough to be able to play at a really high level. That’s cause for celebration, not for disquiet. It’s a wonderful thing that he’s not stuck in a life as “a 4’7” guy living in Argentina.” From where I’m sitting, none of this even tiptoes near the blur around the border of illegitimacy. It has no bearing at all on his legacy.

“Honestly, I wasn’t trying to attack his character or say that he “doped.””: My bad! You were casting aspersions on the legitimacy of his performance. Shame on me for not knowing the difference…

“Doping, as I would define it, is taking a substance that is against the rules.”: I’m sorry to inform you that we don’t live in a world where you arbitrarily define words to suit your cynical ends. Doping, as WADA, USADA, IOC, USOC, and every other organization I know of defines it as a substance or activity for synthetically enhancing performance. That is to say, exactly what you accused Messi of.

“And really, it’s disingenuous at best to compare HGH to ankle surgery…and I think you know that.”: No, I don’t. They were both medical treatments administered to the standard level of care. Is the use of HGH in a hormonally normal athlete cheating? Absolutely. In a 9 year old boy with an inactive endocrine system? Not a chance. It’s as much a necessary and common procedure as Ronaldo’s ankle surgery ever was. Arguably moreso, depending on whether you believed Man U or the Portuguese FA.

Brian dealt enough with your ridiculous attempt at playing hypothetical historian that I won’t pile on, except to say that it’s fallacious at best and more likely just mean-spirited.

Man up, Mike. I don’t care if you dislike Messi or would prefer Ronaldo stand atop that pedestal. That’s your preference. But don’t drag someone’s name through the mud under the pretense of some silly sense of cosmic justice. For an athlete, their name is all they have. There are enough cheaters in this world without you needing to scream “WITCH!” at an honest person.

@Brian You are correct in asserting that doping is not something that can arbitrarily or subjectively be defined to suit “cynical ends.” Inasmuch as you intended to make that argument, however, you might have done well to bother looking up the definition that the WADA uses. It is taking an illegal/banned substance, trying to conceal your use of that substance, refusing to be tested, etc. Turns out my “arbitrary” wasn’t quite as arbitrary as you insinuated; it was pretty accurate. Messi meets NONE of the WADA standards for “doping” even though he used HGH. So I am more than justified in saying that Messi used HGH, that he wouldn’t be the footballer he is today without it, and that he is resolutely NOT a doper or a cheat. That statement really isn’t debatable. Frankly, it’s not something that Messi or Barca would or could even bother to argue. And my point in bringing up the issue isn’t to “smear” Messi’s name. By all accounts he is a fantastic human being and, on the pitch his class is undeniable. He has worked hard, without breaking any rules, to get where he is today and the accolades he receives are more than deserved. My point – as you correctly yet derisively identified – is to engage an ethical discussion. I think it is a critical function of fans and society to consider the ethics of sport. Setting aside our own personal preferences in the Messi vs. Ronaldo debate, the question is where to draw the line. We rail against PEDs and against athletes in all sports who use them, but it’s blindly okay to Messi to use HGH for the specific purpose of enhancing performance? Maybe. Maybe not. What it doctors said he would grow to 5’1”? 5’3”? Mugsy Bogues played in the NBA at 5’3″ and he could dunk. Imagine if he’d been a little taller. I don’t mean to be crass; I want to ask the question: Where do we draw the line? And how? I honestly don’t have a problem with Messi – I love watching him – or with his HGH regimen. I do wonder, though, whether it is an asterisk on his career – of the same variety that I’d place on the career of a guy who had outrageous natural talent but wouldn’t have been quite the same without PEDs like Barry Bonds. You obviously feel that there is no need for an asterisk. Maybe you’re right. Maybe the extreme defensiveness about the topic that is evident in the rhetoric of your responses shows that in the back of your mind you think the same thing. At the very least, it’s an issue that’s worth discussing for the sake of my conscience and those of numerous others who are confronted with the facts of Messi’s career.

Golly. Anyway, to get back to the spirit of the original post, have you ever considered Cristiano Ronaldo as an architectural style? Hell, I know I have.

If he were a house, the whole structure – bare brushed concrete, natch – would stripped of any feature that did not convey bulk, power and speed. All angles would be right angles. Every path for the eye to follow would be the most direct: a straight line. As a house, Cristiano Ronaldo would be a place to feel pumped, primed and shout “Yah!”

If Leo Messi were a house, there’d be constant interplay between light and shade. Your eye would be taken from one feature to the next without you being quite sure how it got there. Arched skylights, rounded columns, swaying palms – there’d be no straight line if a curved one could do the job. As a house, Messi would be a place to sit back, sip something and murmur “Mmm”.

Ready? Here and here are the actual homes where Cristiano Ronaldo and Messi, respectively, currently reside.

“The problem is that using Ronaldo as an emotional tool to reinforce the justice of Barcelona’s greatness has made us—me, certainly, all too often—overlook the fact that he is playing absolutely brilliantly.”

I think the greater problem is that Ronaldo’s instant catchall despicableness serves as unfortunate foil for Barcelona’s obfuscation, aiding them in veiling their hypocrisy and flaws.

@lobotics How does his behavior off the pitch support it? Don’t cite tabloid bullshit; look at his life, his self-sacrifice, his family history, his sobriety. Most football fans know absolutely nothing about him as a person except for what they read in the red tops.

He got on the end of a cross and scored, yes, but did nothing else all game. In fact, he was owned by Essien thereafter and was totally out of the game even going on to miss his penalty in the shootout.

Now where would his (CR’s) reputation be if Terry had converted from that kick?

@A Where would Messi be if Chelsea had been give any one of the three or four clear penalties in the semi-final the other year? The entire “doesn’t perform in big matches” is one of the most tired and frankly idiotic arguments that floats around the media (usually the Daily Mail quality analysis) and the internet.

Messi is a genius. When you watch him everything seems so easy. He doesnt look like a normal human being, it was like he was born for that. Ronaldo you see a super athlete, you see that he is good for being fast, strong and all. Messi is a genius, Ronaldo is not.

Given the age that Messi took the drugs it would have overloaded Ronaldo’s Pituitary Gland and would have caused all sorts of muscle and bone deformities. Had Ronaldo been given Messi’s treatment then he wouldn’t have become a pro player. Messi’s body only accepted the treatment because he had an HGH deficiency (something the body produces naturally), you can’t just give it to children and expect them to get stronger. For adults its when HGH is reintroduced into the system after they have stopped growing that excess muscle mass is created. The steroids and other medication Ronaldo received for his heart condition didn’t make him a better player either.

I do not usually take the time to reply to things like these but given my passion in both writing and football i must say, this article is incredible. Well written and as for CR7/9. As a life long Chelsea supporter, i still think he is one of the greatest players to grace the EPL and still feel he is sorely missed. He may of had the attitude, the swagger, the bad boy persona but that is part of who he was. His arrogance was entertainment to millions. His goals left the jaws of many dropped. Absolutely class. I for one have not been following his career at Madrid too closely but i know he has been prolific in his scoring. Messi vs CR9 really is Good vs Evil.